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Mass graves believed to contain bodies of hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh have been found in Malaysia, the country’s home minister said. Police discovered 30 large graves in two locations in the northern state of Perlis, which borders Thailand, local media reported yesterday.

Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi confirmed the unearthing of a mass grave near 17 human trafficking detention camps in Padang Besar. The camps were abandoned when officers got there, he said.

The Star newspaper reported on its website that nearly 100 bodies were found in one grave on Friday.

Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from the capital Kuala Lumpur, said identification and verification of the remains was ongoing.

It was not clear if the bodies were members of a Muslim minority from Myanmar known as Rohingya, an official said.

Northern Malaysia is on a route for smugglers bringing people to Southeast Asia by boat from Myanmar, most of them Rohingya who say they are fleeing persecution, and people from Bangladesh seeking work.

Smugglers have also used southern Thailand. The Utusan Malaysia newspaper said police believed the discovery had a connection to mass graves found on the Thai side of the border earlier this month.

Twenty-six bodies were exhumed from a grave in Thailand’s Songkhla province on May 1, over the border from Perlis, near a camp with suspected links to human trafficking.

More than 3,000 migrants, most of them from Myanmar and Bangladesh, have landed on boats in Malaysia and Indonesia this month after a crackdown on trafficking in Thailand. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday pledged assistance and ordered the navy to rescue thousands adrift at sea.

Meanwhile, despite cries of alarm from European politicians over the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean, African leaders have been silent over an issue they fear underlines their weak governance, say campaigners.

For years Libya has been a stepping stone for Africans seeking to get to Europe, fleeing conflict, economic hardship and instability often in rickety, unseaworthy vessels. But the number of deaths has risen dramatically as boats operated by smugglers have capsized off Libya’s coast, triggering alarm among European leaders seeking to halt the flow.

The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, estimates around 60,000 men, women and children have braved the Mediterranean so far this year in desperate efforts to reach Europe, more than 1,800 perishing in the attempt.

More than half of the 800 migrants killed in a trawler shipwreck on April 19 that sparked outrage around the world came from the Gambia, Senegal and Mali, according to estimates drawn up by those countries.

A month on, the European Union has announced controversial plans for a military operation to fight people smugglers in the Mediterranean, but there has been little focus on the issue in Africa itself. —AFP